Safe Surfing with TrustPlus

We’ve all heard the horror stories about people getting ripped off on the web. Scams are all over the place – and unfortunately it’s not just spam. It’s easy to avoid the Nigerian scams (although amazingly enough people still get caught up in that one), and it’s simple to delete the spam. But what about other transactions like buying on EBay or craigslist, or dating on Match.com? How can you be confident that the person you are dealing with is trustworthy? The ease with which one can change identities makes it hard to trust people.

Conversely, if you spend a lot of time and energy building up a good reputation on a particular site, be it selling on EBay or commenting on AVS Forum, you can’t take that reputation to other sites.

Fortunately, my friend Shawn Broderick has come to the rescue. Shawn has started a company called TrustPlus, which allows you to build your online reputation, take it where ever you go online, and check out the reputation of people you are interacting with at EBay or other sites. It’s really easy to use and it makes a lot of sense.

If you download the TrustPlus Plug in, every time you visit a site like EBay, Linkedin or craigslist, you will see a trust icon next to the post. If the person has a reputation with TrustPlus, the icon will tell you their rating. At the same time, whenever you interact with someone, you can go to TrustPlus and rate that person.

The nice thing about TrustPlus is that the heuristics behind the reputation calculations are pretty sophisticated. For example, if you build a good reputation by commenting on audio/visual equipment, that is a big positive if you are selling a stereo on craigslist, but it won’t be as relevant if you want to sell a car.

In the same way, ratings about others get more weight if they come from people you know and trust instead of strangers. Let’s say you are buying something from JohnDoe487 at EBay. JohnDoe487 has received good ratings from a lot people, but he also has a few negative ratings. And it turns out that one of the negative ratings comes from a good friend of yours. That negative rating will have more weight in the reputation of JohnDoe487 that you see. Pretty cool, huh?

Like any network, the more people that use it, the more value you get out of it. So stop reading an go check it out! www.trustplus.com

Wii Wins!!

In what few would have predicted a year ago, the Nintendo Wii is now the best selling next Gen console (Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, and Sony Playstation 3). Given that that the Xbox 360 had a year head start.\, this is an impressive accomplishment. Worldwide, the Wii has sold 11.54 million units compared to 10.95 million Xbox 360 units and 4.6 million PS 3 units. Check out the data here.

This is good news for us Wii owners, as the virtuous cycle with software will start to kick in. Initially the game publishers make bets on the different systems and will favor one over the others in terms of the amount of software they design for it. For this generation of console, the Wii was initially dismissed (based upon the mediocre performance of the GameCube). But with the success of the Wii, we should see developers start to shift more resources to the Wii.

And yes – I did say “us Wii owners.”  We have a Wii!!!!!  Back in May I was in a BestBuy and happened upon a woman holding a with a brand new Wii. I looked at her and I looked at the shelf and realized she had snagged the last one. The sales clerk must have seen my look of disappointment (or jealousy) and offered to check in the back to see if they had any more.  Imagine my surprise when he returned with a Wii under his arm!

Working under the philosophy of “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission” (always a risky thing to do – but this was a Wii!!!!), I bought it. Since then I have had a chance to play a number of different games including Wii Sports (tennis, golf, bowling, boxing, and baseball), Super Paper Mario, Resident Evil 4, Super Monkey Ball, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the Bigs, Boogie, Madden NFL ‘08, and just in the past few days Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

So – what’s the review? Overall I give the Wii two strong thumbs up. It’s a great system that is a lot of fun to play. It’s not without it’s flaws, but my hunch is that over time, the minor quibbles I have with the system will be improved upon.

I really like the control system, and it is used to great effect in a number games. Initially I found the sensing to be a little fussy and I found the cursor would jump all over the place at times. It turns out that placing the sensor bar (which picks up all the movements of the Wii controllers) below the TV works much better than having it on top. The graphics are okay for most games, but they are getting better as developers get more comfortable with the hardware. Metroid Prime 3 is a perfect example – the graphics are really good and smooth. Not PS3 quality, but the key point is it doesn’t matter – the game is FUN!!

If Metroid is really a gamers game (although it is pretty easy to get into), Wii Sports is a great family game. My kids love playing golf and tennis, and Nick regularly KO’s me in boxing. Even my Mom could play Wii Sports (which is exactly what Nintendo wanted). Super Monkey Ball is a fun silly game with lots of mini-games that are a hit with the family – especially the snowboard race. Of the games I’ve played, the only dud was the Bigs.  Way too hard for me – after one inning of solo play (as the Red Sox of course!) – I was losing to Detroit 22-1. Boogie is not really my cup of tea (a Karaoke game), but Caitlin loves it.

I’ll have other comments as I play more Wii, but overall I’m impressed and I can see why Wii wins.